Naspers to separately list and unbundle MultiChoice

(Bloomberg) — Naspers Ltd. is planning a separate listing of pay-TV unit Multichoice on Johannesburg’s stock exchange as Africa’s biggest company seeks to focus on internet businesses and boost value for shareholders.

The move comes almost two months after Chief Executive Officer Bob Van Dijk said the media giant was considering the unbundling of certain parts of the company to help reduce in size. Multichoice is “profitable and highly cash generative,” the Cape Town-based firm said in a statement on Monday.

File Photo: An advertisement for Golf Digest magazine sits on display beside a statue of explorer Bartolomeu Dias outside the offices of the Media24 Ltd. media group, operated by Naspers Ltd., at the company’s headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa. Naspers, a key investor in China’s Tencent and Russia’s Mail.ru, is now targeting investments in the United States. Photographer: Graeme Williams/Bloomberg

“This marks a significant step as Naspers continues its evolution into a global consumer internet company,” it said.

Naspers has long sought to narrow the gap in value between its stake in Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. and the firm as a whole. The South African company has online interests around the world, from Russia to Brazil.